Genius
by Waldo
Summary: Companion piece to Screwed. Lee thinks about what in the world could bring Kara and Baltar together.


**Title: **Genius

**Author **: Waldo. ( **kwaldo12 **)

**Rating **: R

**Pairing **: Kara/Baltar and Lee/Kara

**Spoilers **:**Colonial Day and Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I **

**Summary **: What in the name of the seven hells had she been thinking?

**Partner fic to **:Screwed

Genius

By Waldo.

Lee lay on his bunk staring at the ceiling. Every few minutes his eyes drifted across the room to be sure that Kara was, in fact, in her bunk. He couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed her absence last night.

He rubbed his jaw where the bruise was starting to show. He wasn't proud of his stunt in the hangar bay that afternoon. Goading Starbuck was pretty stupid. But, he admitted on a sigh, he was pretty jealous.

Gaius Baltar. Of all people.

Lee had heard the story of her walking into his lab where he'd apparently been frakking thin air – not jerking off, according to Kara - but actually acting as if there was someone in front of him. She'd called him every form of crazy she could think of and he'd added one or two of his own. He remembered her saying that it was a good thing he was a brilliant scientist and a decent card player or he'd be resigned to the _Hera's Star_ with the rest of the refugees who lost touch with reality after the destruction of the colonies. He'd added the lame comment that Baltar certainly didn't seem to be firing on all three thrusters.

So what in the name of the seven hells had she been thinking?

Power never seemed to impress Kara. It couldn't have been that. In fact, Kara's interest in a person and the amount of power that person had generally had an inverse relationship. _And_ she thought the man was nuts.

But she also agreed with everyone else that he was brilliant. She occasionally (and sarcastically) referred to him as the 'poor, misunderstood genius'. Was that at all appealing to her?

Lee flipped over and tucked his pillow under his chest. Genius. He rolled the word around in his head. One definition for the word that had always stuck with him was that a genius was a person who rearranges old material in a new way. Baltar certainly seemed to take the scientific knowledge of the colonies and rearrange things quite regularly. He'd managed to make two different Cylon detectors – one out of a nuclear bomb.

He glanced over at Kara, who seemed to be deliberately giving him her back.

He sighed again. He'd gone to the academy with Kara. Her grades were good, but not outstanding. Except in any kind of practical flight assessment. There she'd been impossible to beat. It kept her from getting her ass kicked out of school several times and kept her from getting court-martialed more than once. When it came to flying, Starbuck was a genius.

Maybe that was it. Genius attracted to genius.

Kara liked to be challenged. In the air, at the card table, in a fight… pretty much anywhere. Lee was willing to stand up to her and he never took her bullshit attitude, but he knew that she could dust him in the air and at the table. And in a real, honest to gods fight, she could probably kick his ass.

Even she admitted that Baltar was a good card player. And apparently she wasn't interested in beating him up, it would seem he offered an entirely different kind of physical challenge.

Unbidden, the thought rose up: he wondered who'd topped.

He shook his head of the mental image and rolled onto his back hoping that the dull imprint of the ceiling would replace the one his mind's eye couldn't seem to shake.

He turned his thoughts to the card game and the bizarre conversation those two had had before Kara had bolted. Gaius had made a point of mentioning that she should sit next to 'Captain Adama'. That struck Lee as strange. If they were screwing each other, wouldn't he want her to sit by him?

No, he decided, they weren't screwing each other. They'd done it once and something hadn't gone right. He was reasonably sure that while Kara had been with Zak that she'd been loyal to him, but Lee knew her before she got together with his brother and knew that one-night stands weren't unknown to her. And her usual reaction was to smile for two days straight and frequently brag about it. Something had gone really wrong last night. He realized that what ever it had been, Kara had planned to try and ignore it. She'd come into the card game calling the doctor by his first name and acting perfectly normal. Baltar, on the other hand, had been getting remarkably drunk early in the day and had told her to call him by his title and he'd called her 'Lieutenant Thrace', as if they were the barest of acquaintances.

Kara had been sullen for the rest of the day, snapping at everyone but him, giving him the cold shoulder.

He had to push. She was clearly ready to pretend the whole thing hadn't happened, and obviously wanted no part of telling him about it. But he had to push her.

He supposed he hadn't even realized how jealous he was until he refused to let the discussion drop no matter how many non-commital answers she gave him.

"_Why'd you do it?"_

"'_Cause I'm a screw up, Lee, try and keep that in mind."_

His voice had broken as he'd asked the question. He couldn't imagine that she'd missed that.

And her damn answer. That, he thought, had been harder to take than the fact that she slept with that lunatic. She had believed that. She had believed that she was a screw up. That for whatever twisted reasons she had, that no man would accept her for what she was. Who she was. She believed that she had to settle, take whatever little attention was given to her because she didn't deserve anything more.

He pounded the mattress under his hand. She was so wrong.

He may not be the smartest, the fastest, or the cleverest, but he knew more about one thing than Gaius Baltar ever would. He knew her.


End file.
